D) Dialectal words

This group of words is obviously opposed to the other groups of the non-literary English vocabulary and therefore its stylistic, func­tions can be more or less clearly defined. Dialectal words are those which in the process of integration of the English national lan­guage remained beyond its literary boundaries, and their use is gener­ally confined to a definite locality. We exclude here what are called social dialects or even the still looser application of the term as in ex­pressions like poetical dialect or styles as dialects.

There is sometimes a difficulty in distinguishing dialectal words from colloquial words. Some dialectal words have become so familiar in good colloquial or standard colloquial English that they are uni­versally accepted as recognized units of the standard colloquial Eng­lish. To these words belong lass, meaning 'a girl or a beloved girl and the corresponding lad, 'a boy or a young man, daft from the Scottish and the northern dialect, meaning 'of unsound mind, silly; fash also

Scottish, with the meaning of 'trouble, cares'. Still they have not lost their dialectal associations and therefore are used in literary English with the above-mentioned stylistic function of characterization.

Of quite a different nature are dialectal words which are easily rec­ognized as corruptions of standard English words, although etymologically they may have sprung from the peculiarities of certain dialects. The following words may serve as examples: hinny from honey; tittie appar­ently from sister, being a childish corruption of the word; cutty meaning a 'testy or naughty girl or woman.

Most of the examples so far quoted come from the Scottish and the northern dialects. This is explained by the fact that Scotland has strug­gled to retain the peculiarities of her language. Therefore many of the words fixed in dictionaries as dialectal are of Scottish origin.

Among other dialects used for stylistic purposes in literature is the southern dialect (in particular that of Somersetshire). This dialect has a phonetic peculiarity that distinguishes it from other dialects, viz. initial [si and [f] are voiced, and are written in the direct speech of char­acters as [z] and M, for example: 'volk (folk), 'vound (found), 'zee (see), 'zinking (sinking).

E) Vulgar words or vulgarisms

The term vulgarism, as used to single out a definite group of words of non-standard English, is rather misleading. The ambiguity of the term apparently proceeds from the etymology of the word. Vulgar, as explained by the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, means a) words or names employed in ordinary speech; b) common, familiar; c) commonly current or prevalent, generally or widely disseminated.

These two submeanklgs are the foundation of what we here name vul­garisms. So vulgarisms are:

1) expletives and swear words which are of an abusive character, like 'damn', 'bloody', to hell', 'goddam' and, as some dictionaries state, used now as general exclamations;

2) obscene words. These are known as four-letter words the use of which is banned in any form of intercourse as being indecent. All of these words are of Anglo-Saxon origin.

Vulgarisms are often used in conversation out of habit, without any thought of what they mean, or imitation of those who use them in or­der not to seem old-fashioned or prudish. Unfortunately in modern fiction these words have gained legitimacy. The most vulgar of them are now to be found even in good novels. This lifting of the taboo has given rise to the almost unrestrained employment of words which soil the literary language. However, they will never acquire the status of standard Eng­lish vocabulary and will always remain on the outskirts.